Mr Saatchi was pictured with his hand around his wife’s throat as the couple sat outside Scott’s, a seafood restaurant in Mayfair popular with celebrities, on June 9.

The millionaire art collector initially described the incident as a “playful tiff”, claiming that he had held Miss Lawson’s neck repeatedly to “emphasise my point” while the couple discussed their children.

However, Mr Saatchi later voluntarily went to Charing Cross police station and accepted a caution for assault. He explained that he did this to avoid having the incident “hanging over all of us for months”.

Miss Lawson has moved out of the marital home in Chelsea, West London, and is temporarily staying in a rented apartment in an exclusive private members’ club in Mayfair.

On Sunday a suitcase with clothes spilling out of it was delivered to the five-storey block of flats where she is lying low.

Meanwhile, the paparazzo who took the original pictures that sparked the furore has dismissed Mr Saatchi’s claim that the incident was “a playful tiff” and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s suggestion that it could have been a “fleeting thing”.

The photographer, using the pseudonym Jean-Paul, said the incident in fact lasted 27 minutes.

He told the Sunday People: “People have asked why I didn't intervene, why I didn't go over. The answer is simple - I would have been arrested. I'm paparazzi so everyone hates you to begin with.

“We are all lumped into the same category but I wasn't hounding her. The best thing I could do was carry on taking the pictures because now everyone can see that Charles Saatchi is an abuser.”